Google Sidewiki – More than Unified Commenting?

With last week’s release of Sidewiki, there have been a quite a few discussions around whether it is a good or bad thing for blogs and sites in general. Whether it is the right way to go about implementing a global commenting system, etc, etc.

Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t really worry too much – my thoughts are around what can be done with the API.

What is Sidewiki
To understand what we can do with the Sidewiki API, we should probably first understand what Sidewiki is. My understanding is that Sidewiki allows known users to add and retrieve Sidewiki entries (conforming to the Google Data Protocol) for a particular webpage URI. Simple enough, but creates a bit of controversy when it’s primary advertised use is for commenting on any website without allowing moderation by the site owner.

Taking a step back
Most of the chatter around Sidewiki is it’s use as a mechanism for commenting on or annotating websites. Well, yes that’s its primary purpose. What else could it be used for though?

At it’s core it is a series of date-time stamped, content entries by a number of separate “known” authors about a particular webpage URI. Does it have to be an actual webpage? Could we use a URI in the same way that is used in RDF to describe a unique global object, and then allow people to comment on that particular object (like the Eiffel tower for instance)? I guess that depends on whether Google require that an actual webpage be associated with the URI (not something I know the answer to yet).

More possibilities than Twitter?
Taking a look at the surface of Twitter we see a very simple concept (ableit technically challenging to implement) that both users and developers have taken places not originally envisaged by its creators. In essence, Sidewiki offers a similar opportunity for developers and users to apply some of the Twitter symbologies such as @ symbol and the # tag to apply extra context to a sidewiki entry which could possibly allow other applications to make use of the global collaboration space essentially created by Sidewiki.

Note: Currently the Sidewiki API does not allow free text searches, however, the broader Google Data API specification does. With some encouragement Google may implement that feature into Sidewiki.

What can be built?
Well, I’ve got a bit of investigating to do before I have any specific ideas, but as mentioned the ability to collaborate on a unique world object would be particularly interesting (but not without it’s challenges – ala the semantic web).

Certainly a lot of the applications we have seen built using twitter as a communication layer could make use of Sidewiki instead. Simply replacing a unique identifying hashtag with a unique URI for a an item being collaborated on instead would make for a very simple transition.

Be interested in hearing your thoughts and seeing any cool applications that you have sandpitted using the Sidewiki APIs…